


Beside Holder

by Lilysmum



Category: The Killing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 06:38:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8361298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilysmum/pseuds/Lilysmum
Summary: Season 3, Episode 9. A continuation of the scene in Holder's apartment where Linden tries to comfort her distraught partner.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This one took me forever...

Cops receive training on this type of thing.

How to speak to someone who is heartbroken, guilt-ridden, angry. How to deal with people during the worst times of their lives. Linden’s had that training and years of experience too.

Normally, she thinks she’s pretty good at it.

But not now.

Not when it’s Holder sobbing beside her on his aging sofa with his face the colour of rain. Not when it’s her partner’s normally strong body all but collapsing in onto itself.  When it comes to him all her training and experience go out the window. She knows nothing. All she can do is _feel._ Feel the pain coming off of him in waves, feel it washing up against her, like ripples of muddy water.  

She had recognized only too well the soul-destroying guilt he’d been feeling when she saw his stoicism crumble. She’d thought that she could reach through; she thought she could grab his hand before he slid any farther. But she couldn’t save him now any more than she could have stopped him from opening up the trunk of that cab earlier today. His pain cut her to the bone, he was barely keeping it together, and all she could think of to do was try to comfort a friend. That’s when it all went sideways.

It’s never come easy to her, comforting. She figures she must have missed something, somewhere along the way; she never knows if she’s doing it right. She’d done the best she could, but her best hadn’t amounted to much, and now she’s got the sick sinking feeling in her stomach that her efforts have just made everything worse for him.

And maybe Holder had missed something too, somewhere, she muses as she slumps against the back of the sofa, finishing a cigarette. Maybe it didn’t come easy to him, to be able to accept that someone cared. Certainly he wasn’t used to her sitting that close to him, or touching him that way. Maybe he’d reacted in the only way that he knew.

Or possibly he meant it. Possibly it was more than him just being drunk and fucked up. She’d be lying if she said that she’s never thought of the two of them together.

But all she knows now is that there is nothing she can do, nothing she can say, to make any of it better. And now on top of the wretchedness of a young girl’s death and the role her partner thinks he played in it there’s an elephant in the room. Actually it’s more like a whole herd of elephants, milling around them in Holder’s darkening, smoke filled apartment.

But she is not going to let them run her off. Because this is Holder. And he’s too important.

 

The crying jag doesn’t last. His wrenching sobs soon turn to painful sounding hiccups and he stands up abruptly to stretch his limbs and crack his neck before he takes a deep breath and laughs bitterly.

“Everyone who was supposed to be lookin’out for that kid abandoned her,” he says, looking around as if he has somewhere to go and then realizes he doesn’t.  He flops back down on the sofa, “We were all she had.  And I didn’t pick up.”

He cracks another beer and empties half of it down his throat in one go. He peeks at her tentatively over his shoulder, wet eyed, then stifles a belch before he opens a second can and offers it to her.

“It’s not cold,” he tells her but she accepts it with a grateful shrug and drinks.

 

It’s later. He’s calmed down, apologized. Again.  She’s told him its fine, it doesn’t matter. Again.

It’s hard for her not to touch him. It’s all different now. She’s not used to him this way, with his edges blurred, and with her own almost non-existent.  She can drink liquor but she’s a lightweight when it comes to beer.

“Where’s your girl?” She asks him, eventually.  She knows the woman’s name but she isn’t going to say it.  

Holder straightens slightly and blinks, as if he’s just remembered something. He grimaces and shrugs.

“Fucked that up too,” he tells her.

“I can crash here, then?” she asks him.

He nods without looking at her.

“’Course,” he says, then, “anytime. I toldya before. But seriously Linden you should bounce,” he bows his head and rubs his eyelids with long tired fingers, “I ain’t gonna off myself, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

 “It’s not what I’m thinking,” she sighs, “What I’m thinking is that I won’t make the ferry, now. And what are you going to do anyway, if I go?”

“Dunno,” Holder finishes a beer, holds up the can and considers it thoughtfully for a minute before crushing it slowly it in his fist, “keep drinking these till I pass out. Then get up tomorrow and do it again.”

“Well, whatever, I’m staying,” Linden tells him, “do what you want.”

 

He’s crying again, later, but silently.  She pretends not to notice. She’s had enough beer and they’re almost out of cigarettes. She busies herself tidying up, emptying the ashtray, wiping the table, throwing away the empty cans.

“I fucked up Linden,” Holder tells her, scrubbing the wet from his face with both hands, “I’m fucked up.” He reaches for another can, “An’ I’m _fucking_ up.”

“No,” she says firmly, “you didn’t. And you’re not.”

She takes the can from his hand, sets it down on the table, “Get up.” She tells him and is surprised when he rises obediently to his feet. He wavers a little, and stares at her, his eyes ringed with dark smudges. He looks at her strangely, but he doesn’t ask.

“Come on,” Linden grabs him by the wrist and leads him to the bathroom. He stands silently in the doorway watching her as she pushes up her sleeve, pulls the shower curtain closed and reaches inside to turn on the water.

“Get in.” She tells him once she’s satisfied with the temperature of the water and she edges by him to exit through the narrow doorway. She pauses in the hallway and listens until she hears the sounds of him stripping off his clothes and stepping under the spray.

In his bedroom she roots through his dresser drawers for boxers and a t-shirt. Moist warmth surrounds her as she steps back into the bathroom to leave them folded on the closed seat of the toilet. In the kitchen she finds three slices of pineapple-covered pizza neatly cellophaned to a plate in the fridge. She heats them up and then takes them into the bedroom where Holder is seated on the edge of his bed rubbing his hair with a towel. He eyes her wordlessly as she sets the plate down beside him. He takes two of the slices, stacking them one on top of the other and then holds the plate out towards her.

“Share,” he says and stares her down until she accepts the plate.

 

Her own tears come easily in the safety of Holder’s shower. She turns the water up hotter, the humid heat making it easier to fill her lungs. She learned at a young age not to cry when she was sad, it just brought her unwanted attention, but she still can’t avoid it when she’s overwhelmed with anger. She holds her face under the spray to wash away the tears. Since childhood she’s always thought of them as toxins, as poisons that need to be released from her body and she doesn’t resist. Today they were put there by a beating she received at the hands of a child-killing pervert. More were added by the sight of a small grubby hand and a homemade tattoo. Their salt stings the cuts near her eye and her mouth. But most of her tears now are for her partner’s agony. For what this night may mean for his future. For their clumsy and imperfect attempts to care for each other and for how fucked up everything is.  But the water helps; the warmth unlocks her tense muscles and soothes the ache in her skull, and the solitude helps her to gather herself up.

She’s warm and steady when she re-enters Holder’s bedroom. He’s wearing the boxers she left out for him and she dons his t-shirt when he offers it to her, dropping her towel and pulling it over her head without turning away. He reaches out to grab her chin, tilting her head and squinting at the damage to her face, his reddened eyes meeting her own more than once.

“Probably could have used a stitch, this one,” he tells her. He’s only inches away from her, she can feel the heat coming off of his skin, for a second, before he steps away.

 

She’s locked the door, turned off the lights. He’s lying flat out on his bed. There’s nothing left to do.

“Holder. You’re not alone.”

He turns his head towards her abruptly, as if startled by her voice, then looks away just as quickly, his eyes focusing on the dark rectangle of night sky framed within the bedroom window.

“I know that,” he snaps.  It comes out too fast, too loud, his voice a painful-sounding mix of defensiveness and resentment.

“That’s not what…” she tries again but he interrupts her with a heavy sigh.

“I’m sorry. Linden, I’m an asshole. And I’m drunk.” He shakes his head without looking at her, scrubs his hand over his face and then flops his arm across his eyes. “Just go. Do yourself a favour.”

She walks to the side of the bed.

“I’m not leaving, I said.” She folds one leg under herself as she sits up on the side of the bed.  Holder turns again as he feels the mattress dip under her weight.  She waits for strength, or courage, just something, anything, to come, but when it doesn’t it doesn’t matter. She watches him turn away from her again and she plunges in anyway.

“What I mean is you’re not the only one who feels that way,” she says it gently, and hesitates a moment to let her words sink in. Holder turns back to stare at her, blinking.

“It just didn’t feel like it was the best time for us to try to see where it will go,” Linden continues.

There. It’s out; there’s no taking it back. She draws a long breath and lets it out slowly. She’s shaking inwardly, her core is actually trembling. But she also feels light, as if she’s set down a burden.

Holder just stares at her wordlessly. His eyes search her face but only meet hers directly for a moment, as if he’s afraid that he got it wrong, or maybe he’s just afraid to believe her.

She switches off the small lamp on the bedside table and then stretches out slowly, sighing deeply as the mattress takes the weight from her body and she feels some of the tension drain away. It’s snowing, she notes, looking past Holder’s prone body to the window, there’s heavy wet flakes falling straight down like rain.

The instinct to touch him is almost overwhelming but she resists, turning on her side to face him as he moves over to give her more room and pushes a pillow towards her. The sheets are cool and smooth.

“So you’re not pissed?” he asks her, long seconds later.

“No. Not pissed.” She tells him.

“Okay,” he sighs just as she reaches out to lay her hand on his chest. He puts his own larger, heavier one on top of hers, holding it there. “Okay,” he says again, some time later, before finally closing his eyes.

 

She’s grateful that he’s sleeping; it’s the best thing for him and probably would be for her as well but that’s not happening. She can’t stop herself from thinking of other things as she lies beside him, silent and awake.

What she wants is to press her mouth to the smooth cool skin on his shoulder. She wants to wrap him in her arms, hold him to her breasts and press her face in his hair.  She wants to feel the hair on his legs against her inner thighs and she wants him inside her, wants to feel him, his weight, all of it, his strength, and her own.  

She doesn’t give a shit about the pair of silvery hoop earrings staring at her from the bedside table, or about the girly lavender shower gel she just used. His girl will be back, no doubt.  She also doesn’t care that she’s possibly, no, probably going to start things up again with Skinner. Those things don’t matter now.

She doesn’t spend any time wondering how something that just hours ago seemed like it would be a huge mistake has become something else entirely. For a second she even imagines the two of them somewhere else, in another life. Doing whatever it is that other people do; people who focus on things other than death.

Eventually she makes herself lie motionless and struggles to push her thoughts back in the direction of reality. The case. Kallie. Joe Mills.

And Seward.

God, Seward. If she doesn’t do something there will be a dead man walking in less than twenty-four hours. She thinks about the man she helped to convict three years ago and sees images of bars and chains in the darkness of the room, imagines she hears his feet scuffing on the concrete hallway floor outside of his cell as he shuffles, legs shackled, to his death. She tries to focus, tries to plan out the steps of the things she needs to do, and think of the places she needs to go. She thinks she should get up and get moving, there must be something she can do tonight. But it’s impossible – she’s beside her partner; she doesn’t want to be anywhere else.  Listening to Holder’s slow, steady breathing unwinds her.  As an hour slips by, and another, she feels more and more that she is exactly where she is supposed to be.

 

She feels his presence before she fully regains consciousness. The weight on the bed beside her. His shoulder, big and hard. She thinks it should feel like a problem but it doesn’t. She likes the way this feels. Heavy. Lazy. Nothing expected of her. There’s nothing wrong, nothing missing or left out of her. And she’s not alone. It doesn’t take her any time to remember where she is.

It feels familiar, it feels _correct_.  Like sitting in the car beside him. Or glancing at him across their desks, or during the slick back and forth of one of their interviews. This is how it feels to be beside Holder, just with a new twist, is all. The smell of his skin makes her mouth water. She breathes him in and tries to sink down deeper.

 

He’s awake when she finally opens her eyes.

She’s slept – she can’t believe it - and realizes that it has to be hours later; the room is filled with grey early light. Somehow she’s moved over closer to him now, her legs are stretched out against his longer ones, and his arm has somehow reached out underneath and around her. The hand that she had resting on his chest is still there, still anchored by his own and he squeezes it gently when he feels her stir. She thinks she should probably leave, right fucking now. She also knows she’s not going to.

“I have to go to the prison.” She says softly, more to herself than to Holder. But instead of getting up she pulls her hand from under his and slides it down over the sleep-slackened muscles of his stomach. Ignoring his surprised intake of breath she passes her palm over the scant hair there before moving it back up and across the ink on his chest, and then settles it again where she can feel the solid thud of his heart.

“You want me to go with you?” he asks her, his voice rough still with sleep.

She shakes her head, then shrugs her shoulders hopelessly. She doesn’t know. She just knows that she can’t leave yet.

She sits up abruptly then and peels off her t-shirt. Sitting with her back to him she pulls her knees up to her chest and rests her arms on them, leaning her forehead against her wrists.   

“I want to give him one more chance,” she muses, sighing, “I have to have missed something. There’s hardly any time left.”

She feels his hand high up on her back, feels him fingering her hair before he sweeps it aside and spreads his hand across her skin.

Her body presses itself back into his touch reflexively and she says something, his name maybe, she isn’t sure.  After a minute she feels his hand start to move, his thumb pressing, circling each of her vertebrae slowly, one by one, all the way down. He doesn’t flinch when she turns to face him and runs her hand up the inside of his leg.

“Sounded like you thought we should wait,” he says slowly, “last night.”

“We did wait.” She tells him simply as she sinks back down beside him, pressing her lips to the cool smooth skin of his shoulder, wrapping him in her arms, pulling him to her breasts, pressing her face in his hair.

 

It’s slow, not fast and white-hot and adolescent, the way she had imagined it would be. There’s nothing uncertain or unsteady or desperate. It doesn’t feel like it’s the first time.

She comes easily and expects him to follow suit but he doesn’t, backing off every time he gets close. The second time is enough, more than enough for her, a slow slide over the edge. She asks him breathlessly to come with her but he just bites his lip and shakes his head, watching.

Even after that Holder’s all slow hands and lax limbs, holding himself back, like a hostage that doesn’t want to be free. He can lift her, turn her, hold her effortlessly in his hands and she lets him. She soaks him up, absorbs him, as if she could keep something of him with her forever.

She finally coaxes it out of him by making him lie flat and leaning down to look right through the shadows that darken his eyes. She brushes his hair back off of his forehead and clamps her legs to his sides. She can grip him with her knees and squeeze him as she flexes her thighs. When she sits back up she can move on him as insistently and completely as a tide rolling in and she can’t believe she can feel it so clearly but he’s hard on a whole new level now.  She tells him how it feels to have him so deep inside her and that she doesn’t think it’s ever felt quite like this before. When he starts to move it’s just a little but fuck it really is perfect now and she can tell by the set of his jaw that he knows it, too.

“Can you feel it?” she asks him and he nods, his eyes wide open.

“Take it,” She tells him, “just take it. There’s enough for both of us.”

He gives it up reluctantly, then. He moves his hands from where they were circling her waist to grab onto her hips and hold her still. His body rises up beneath hers once, then twice, nearly lifting them both up off the bed and holding them there for a second, suspended in time, before he curses and groans through clenched teeth. She can feel his strength present in every inch of his body as he takes what he needs from her, finally.  She feels it flowing in him, and through him, back into her.

 

He’s asleep again by the time she gets up, gently disentangling her limbs from his and sliding carefully off the bed.  She finds her clothes in the bathroom and gets dressed quickly, tying up her hair and pausing for a moment to check out her face in the mirror.

When she returns to the bedroom he hasn’t moved, but his eyes are open, watching her steadily.

“Call me if you need whatever,” he says as she opens the door to leave.

She turns back for a second.

“I will,” she tells him. 

She will.


End file.
